The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon Channels continues to take more of the television subscriptions pie from TV networks. The service, which allows Prime customers to purchase streaming subscriptions to television channels is now…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon Go is coming to San Francisco and Chicago, four months after debuting in Seattle. The expansion follows a typical Amazon strategy: opening up shop in its home city, testing out the business…

“Lifestyle brand” is a buzzword that has lost meaning in the consumer economy. Either imposed or self-ascribed, companies with the label use it as a justification for their ambition to become much more than a brand, but a way of life. Some are…

The latest news on everything Amazon
As its apparel retail business grows, Amazon’s 3D body scanning department will collect data on how body size and shape changes over time. The company acquired a startup called Body Labs in 2017 that…

In Walmart and Amazon’s food wars, Instacart may be the collateral damage.
What happened
Walmart continues to rev up its grocery operations at home and abroad. This week, the company announced that it will merge its grocery chain Asda with…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon will begin selling the Echo Dot Kids Edition in May 2018—a smaller device with a protective case, two-year warranty, and a year of the FreeTime Unlimited Family Plan, including child-oriented…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon Key now delivers packages to customers’ cars—an additional service to the Key program, which also drops off packages inside of Prime Members’ homes with the help of an internet-connected door…

While debt has proved problematic for bigger companies, it can also be a savior for smaller ones. In the direct-to-consumer horse race, brands are trying to scale faster than their competitors—most companies have turned to selling equity in exchange…

Big toy retailers like Hasbro and Mattel and independent toy stores hope to gain market share from Toys R Us’ bankruptcy, but Amazon and its competitors may beat them to it.
What happened
In the wake of Toys R Us’ bankruptcy, toy manufacturers…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon will allow more Prime members to access the Prime Wardrobe program, which lets shoppers try on clothes before paying for them. Prime Wardrobe—which has yet to officially launch and serves…

Today, a number of brands and retailers are entering the sports industry, disrupting long-term economic models to make it easier for fans to rep their team spirit. Rep the Squad, for example, is using a rental subscription model to provide fans…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon now has over 70 active private-label brands on its platform. The majority of these brands emerged in 2017, though the company began testing its private-label products in 2009. These brands and…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Whole Foods may offer Prime members a 10% discount, based on signs advertising the offer were seen in the grocery chain’s flagship Austin store. Since the Amazon acquisition, benefits to Whole Foods…

Build-A-Bear thrives —Toys R Us dies.
To-the-point analysis about one of the four important stories from the week.
What happened
Build-A-Bear has posted four consecutive years of profitability and remains debt free in an era when…

As the battle with Amazon continues to heat up, Walmart has the best chance to play offense in categories where Amazon either isn’t focused or isn’t succeeding. While both companies are competing heavily in the private label world, Amazon continues…

Ulta Beauty will begin selling Chanel Beauté—a coveted and surprising addition to the beauty retailer that mixes high and low.
To-the-point analysis about one of the four important stories from the week.
What happened
Ulta Beauty,…

As you continue to produce show after show and movie after movie, with hundreds more in the pipeline, you have an emerging opportunity that will not only grow Netflix revenue, but also deepen the relationship between your service and its…

The latest news on everything Amazon
Amazon.com lockers, which are installed at over 75 Whole Foods locations, allow Amazon customers to pick up their packages in a secure location. This leading to more short-term visits and impulse…

JCPenney continues to leverage Sephora for its turnaround efforts, but the minimal amount of control it has over its biggest growth driver is worrisome.
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
What…

Amazon has an entirely different view of margin than most other companies. One of CEO Jeff Bezos’ most well-known quotes is, “Your margin is my opportunity,” signaling the company’s intention to use its scale to significantly drive down prices for…

Fast-fashion retailers are seeing falling full-price sales, led by H&M and more recently, Zara.
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
What happened
Analysts were already concerned with Zara’s…

Harry's moves beyond shaving as it tries to become a platform and holding company for digitally-native brands.
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
What happened
Harry’s, a…

While off-price stores like TJ Maxx and Burlington have existed for decades, the 2008 recession—the biggest since the dot-com boom—incited retailers to turn more heavily to the off-price business model. At the time, consumers across all…

#59. Resonance is a venture-operating company that is helping designers scale their brands at record speeds. We talk with its co-founder, Joe Ferrara, who started the company with Lawrence Lenihan after spending close to a decade investing in…

Goop expands and diversifies G. Label merchandise, but questions of scalability loom
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
What happened
Goop, which launched in 2008 as Gwyneth Paltrow’s…

Fenty Beauty becomes the fastest-growing celebrity cosmetics line
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
What happened
Sales for Fenty Beauty, a cosmetics line created by Rihanna, Sephora and…

Standard Oil and General Electric—two of the most successful companies ever—are the go-to comparison for massive, interlinked companies. But those who call Amazon the Standard Oil or GE of the 21st century use a comparison that falls short and…

In today’s competitive retail landscape, selling the same products as everyone else—and especially Amazon—puts brands and retailers on the path to self-commoditization: the race to the bottom on price that is bankrupting some companies and seriously…

Fans of Outdoor Voices call out brands for copying its products, proving more powerful than non-existent legal protections
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
What happened
Outdoor Voices…

A single-product company that desires to become a brand needs to diversify its products over time to maintain interest and evolve with the market. But few single-product based companies have been able to build lasting brands with a wide assortment…

Richemont buys Yoox Net-a-Porter, becoming the first major luxury holding company with a serious ecommerce operation
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
Why it’s interesting…

Discount-heavy pricing strategies create long-term cycles of dependence that lead to promotion-addicted shoppers and lowered profit-margins—companies end up repeatedly undercutting themselves. Brands and retailers, therefore, are looking for ways to…

Beauty Pie, the membership-based beauty retailer sees success with its unconventional pricing strategy
To-the-point analysis about one of the five important stories from the week.
Why it’s interesting
Beauty Pie was started…

2017 was yet another transformative year for the consumer economy. There were a range of new developments and trends from the last few years that continued accelerating.
What follows is a recap of 2017, along with some predictions and…

As online sales rapidly increase, Amazon takes a bigger piece of the ecommerce pie, voice commerce and virtual reality appear imminent and subscription models are revitalized, why do sales associates need to be part of the shopping journey at all?…

On the 48th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, a show about the intersection of consumer, retail and commerce, I talk with Jonathan Shokrian, the founder of MeUndies, one of the early direct to consumer subscription brands that is injecting some…

In the 19th century, merchants in the mail-order and wholesale business introduced their own private-label products. The goal was to provide valuable and cheaper alternatives to premium-priced national brands, who significantly marked up their…

General audiences gravitate towards brands with accessible products that provide wide-ranging value. If the product adds some marginal value—it’s a cheaper alternative or improves the experience—it has a solid chance of succeeding. Thinking of…

A few weeks ago, Dave Ambrose tweeted out the above image showing an Away suitcase and an Amazon Basics replica side-by-side. The Away bag costs $295 and the Amazon Basics one is $89.99. Away is one of the current darlings of the direct to consumer…

I've always been fascinated and perplexed by the rhetoric that brands use when talking about Amazon. It's usually a combination of uncertainty, confusion and absolutism. Most of this, understandably, comes from fear. As every day passes, the saying…

How does one build a brand that lasts for centuries? Today, in the consumer goods space—specifically in apparel, fashion, footwear, beauty, cosmetics, accessories, and furniture—it's an especially challenging quandary given the ferocious speed at…

J.Crew’s Mickey Drexler Confesses: I Underestimated How Tech Would Upend Retail read the headline of a big feature in the Wall Street Journal, which ricocheted around the retail and technology world last week. The piece highlighted J.Crew's…

Walmart's acquisition spree in the consumer space has earned the company a lot of press recently. The speed of these acquisitions is a bet that buying companies, brands and talent is the only way for Walmart to catch up to Amazon, its biggest…

This May, Amazon is holding a summit for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, according to Bloomberg. The goal is to convince CPG brands to rethink everything from manufacturing to packaging for the ecommerce-driven world we live in. Producing…

2016 was quite a year for fashion, technology and commerce. This was the year where the reality of different ventures, channels, and theses started to become clearer, as we moved on from the pure hype cycle of endless venture funding and direct to…

On the 9th episode of the Loose Threads Podcast, I talk with Marc Bain, the fashion reporter at Quartz, about his path to covering the fashion industry, which included working for a fashion brand in New York; how he found his reporting beats and how…

The most interesting piece of news last week was that Buzzfeed is formally launching a commerce lab. Named Buzzfeed Product Lab, and led by Ben Kaufman, the former founder of Quirky, the goal is to bring the Buzzfeed mentality—and its massive…

The future potential of a business is closely linked to where it stands in the present. If the future is headed north but the current business is positioned south, it's going to take a lot of work to reorient itself. In the commerce world, the most…